New Report Exposes Impacts of Fracking on Water

A new report released today reveals the impacts of Marcellus Shale gas development on freshwater resources in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The report, Water Resource Reporting and Water Footprint from Marcellus Shale Development in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, provides the most recent and comprehensive investigation of water used and waste generated by fracking operations in the two states.

“Water use and contamination are among the most pressing and controversial aspects of shale gas and oil development,” says Evan Hansen of Downstream Strategies. “Industry and policymakers must heed this information to prevent water and waste problems from escalating.”

The report—based on state and industry data—finds that the volumes of water and waste are a cause for concern, and inadequate industry reporting requirements leave the true extent of the problem unknown, according to a press release. The fracking boom has put a major strain on water resources all over the U.S.

“Our analysis of available data and identification of missing data indicates that, even with new reporting requirements, we still don’t know the full scale of impacts on water resources,” says Dustin Mulvaney of San Jose University. “States should require operators to track and report water and waste at every step, from well pad construction to fracturing to disposal.”

Among the findings:

More than 90 percent of the water injected underground to frack gas wells never returns to the surface, meaning it is permanently removed from the water cycle. This could have huge repercussions in water-poor states.

More than 80 percent of West Virginia’s fracking water comes from rivers and streams. Reuse and recycling of flowback fluid makes up only eight percent of recent water use in West Virginia and 14 percent in the Susquehanna River Basin in Pennsylvania, and is highly unlikely to be a solution to the water needs of the industry going forward.

As the industry expands, the volume of waste generated is also increasing rapidly. Between 2010 and 2011, it went up by 70 percent in Pennsylvania to reach more than 610 million gallons.

Water use per unit energy—often referred to as a blue water footprint—is higher than evaluated by prior research, even though this study employed a stricter definition of water use. While previous studies considered all water withdrawn per unit energy, this one only considered water that is permanently removed from the water cycle.

States have taken steps to gather information on water withdrawals, fluid injection, and waste disposal, but reporting remains incomplete, operators sometimes provide erroneous data, and the data itself is not always readily available to the public.

“It is clear from this report that fracking uses and will continue to use considerable water resources, despite industry claims to the contrary,” says Bruce Baizel director of Earthworks’ energy program. “This means we need stronger public oversight of fracking, and also a more robust debate on how much water we are willing to part with for the sake of fracking.”

Comments

It actually means we should ban fracking; regulations are simply inadequate to protect us.

Your1Friend

You said it.

GilbertDavis

BAN THE CANCER AND DEATH CAUSING HORIZONTAL FRACKING AND BAN THE EARTHQUAKE CAUSING INJECTION WELLS !!!!!!!

pancheetah

Many have already seen Gasland 2 but for those who haven’t, here’s a little ‘taste’ -> http://youtu.be/dzx7UXzK_z4 Very Halloween in a Trick-not-a-treat way.

M_Bailey

Natural gas is dirty and dangerous. Various studies have shown that methane leaks are difficult to capture and may offset many of the so-called “clean” benefits that were presumed about Natural Gas. Furthermore, once proper fracking regulations have been implemented by state legislatures, the price of natural gas will surely rise. On the other hand, we already know that harnessing renewable energy sources, such as the sun and the wind, is the perfect solution to mitigate the environmental impacts caused by energy production in a cost-effective manner.

Developing clean local energy (also known as distributed generation) is a much sounder investment. Generating energy close to where it’s consumed from smaller-scale, decentralized facilities leads to local economic benefits such as job creation and private sector investment. Distributed generation (DG) of renewable energy also avoids the expensive, inefficient, and dangerous long-distance transmission of energy. Lastly, shifting towards increased DG enhances energy security and grid reliability, and massively reduces GHG emissions. To learn more about how to accelerate the transition to a system of clean local energy, visit http://www.clean-coalition.org

Trojan Horace

God help those who are drinking the 8% recycled. The other 92% is leaking however

Frank McGuire

if the federal government would give 75% or better tax rebates for solar, wing and geothermal energy systems to all home owners we would create jobs for carpenters, plumbers, electricians, sales people, office workers, start up businesses, and that would increase the income tax revenues all seems so simple and not being done

Frank McGuire

that would be wind sorry for the misspelling

http://www.townandcountrygirlsrealestate.com/ Paula Denmon

If Pennsylvania and West Virginia are in danger, Texas is already screwed. We had water shortages prior to fracking. But this state would never consider people and the environment above money making energy.

http://sharethisurlaboutglennbeck.com/ Gadamer too

The American Petroleum Inst is running ads on TV touting the “safety” of fracking. Stop the fracking propaganda; move to amend the Constitution to end corporate rights to speech and make it regulated.